A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Mk 4, 37-38.
Sea was a symbol of the dark power of evil. It aways threatened to destroy the creation, destroy God’s people, and destroy God’s purposes.
Jews were not seafaring people, but there were few fishermen among them. They were mostly shepherds and farmers.
At the back of the mind, the Jews accepted that only God could control the sea and its dark forces.
We know the story of creation, wherein God established his power over the sea in creating the world. At Noah’s time, it is God who was in control of all that was happening. When Jonah, instead of doing what God wanted him to do, by taking another direction, was faced with a storm. God saved him and brought him back to do, what He wanted him to do. Israelites, when they were leaving Egypt, it was God who made the way through the waters. Also in Psalms we read, in many places, where God is in control of the sea.
So in this passage the writer is telling us that by the arrival of the Kingdom of God, God’s power is in action over against the evil forces symbolized by the sea.
It is the creative power, the power of control and the power that rules the nature. So in Jesus the power of God is active.
That is why the disciples say: “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”
